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Comment by gdulli | Hacker News Reader

I spent many years in the bluest corner of a very blue state. But still I can't imagine any objection to the word "landlord" outside of (1) a right wing attempt to satirize the left, (2) a Google product brainstorming meeting, or (3) a rare sincere outlier or concern troll. In any of those cases I don't think this is necessary.

That said, if the word "landlord" organically fell out of favor and out of usage to be replaced by something else I wouldn't care. Language is always evolving, and usually we don't make a big deal out of it. It's mundane and can often be helpful. It doesn't have to become a proxy for culture war arguments if we don't make it one.

But to have Google (or any AI) in charge of this... just... no. Admittedly that's a common stance for me but I think it's well justified here anyway.

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Landlord gets hit from multiple sides; those who don't like that it contains "lord" which is a male term, those who don't like that landlords exist, and those who don't like that the concept of owning land exists.

Well, switching to a new word isn't going to make anyone happy if what they're really upset by is that the underlying concept exists.

it contains "lord" which is a male term

I didn't think of that. I always thought of it as "lording over" something. As in she's the "lord of the land."

That said, a landlord and a property owner are not the same thing. Many (most?) apartment buildings are owned by one company and managed by another.

nearest((lord) + (woman) - (man),excluding=[(lord)])==(lady)

A word2vec proof, I like that you took care to exclude the original word, it often comes up with a higher score than the intended target.

Apartment buildings yes, but most single family homes (where people use the term landlord the most I suspect) are usually owned by an identifiable individual.

It's parallel to "landlady"

> As in she's the "lord of the land."

But she wouldn't be; she'd be the "lady of the land".

Queen Elizabeth II is the current Lord of Mann. And Dame Fiona Woolf was the Lord Mayor of London as was Mary Donaldson before her.

Yeah language isn't 100% consistent. You may have noticed Elizabeth isn't the King of England.

> those who don't like that the concept of owning land exists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxRkHeQ7-B8

A caveat of bending over backwards to be as inclusive as possible is that sometimes you end up including people who are just plain nuts. You end up enshrining the personal problems of a handful of people into company policy.

> people who are just plain nuts

Are you suggesting that it's "plain nuts" to be against private ownership of land?

As someone who somewhat supports public land ownership (of the Georgism variety), I think you'd have to be plain nuts to use that belief to justify discouraging others to use the word 'landlord'. Especially considering I hear the word more from people who oppose land ownership than from anyone else. I'm more inclined to believe that this is about gender.

Exactly. One won't eliminate the concept by eliminating the word to describe the concept.

And the new concept is property owner can be of any gender so change the word that points out to one particular gender. When did change become so difficult in this society? Ha!!

> those who don't like that landlords exist, and those who don't like that the concept of owning land exists.

I think these two groups would prefer "landlord" over "proprietor" because "landlord" has a much more negative connotation and probably inspires a visceral reaction in anyone who's had a bad landlord. Only the "male" thing makes any sort of sense from a left wing POV.

It’s just a modern word. “Landlord”. People know what it means. Stop anybody on the street and ask them what a landlord is? They will tell you. It’s an established word. What’s the point in changing it because a few people actively want to be offended?

Sure the origin is to do with Lords but landlord isn't male, anyone can be a landlord, pretending it's gendered is just lying to try and be offended. Presumably, such people think the word coward references bovines as it includes the word cow.

I don't like that landlords exist, but that's an inordinately stupid reason to try and get rid of a word. Surely noone believes that by sensoring a word you get rid of that which the word describes.

> pretending it's gendered is just lying to try and be offended.

Please don't assume this. In the southern US in the late 80s and early 90s, "landlady" was a term that was very commonly used for female "landlords". I'm not sure if it's specifically regional, though.

Canada, too.

"landlady" existing doesn't mean landlord is gendered. Actor and Actress.

Actor has only be degendered the past 10-20 years or so.

> word coward references bovines as it includes the word cow.

I once was scolded by a United Airlines flight agent at Denver when I expressed disappointment that my full-fair buisness class ticket was downgraded to coach because of an operational change. I said, perhaps a bit flippantly, "I didn't pay for a J ticket (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fare_basis_code#Booking_class) to sit in steerage."

She replied: "Sir! How dare you compare people flying coach to cattle!"

(Of course, the word "steerage" has nothing to do with cattle. We sent a Fed-Ex to United corporate telling them we didn't like being scolded and got an apology and a full refund for that flight. This was in 1998 or so. I doubt that would happen today.)

I’ve heard the term “landlady” used before (east coast or Deep South?), so it’s gendered language to someone.

I would be extremely surprised if this came from the left: most people I know relish the negative connotation of being able to describe someone as a landlord.

I would believe the GP's second hypothesis; it's hard to imagine who else would even think to substitute "property owner" for "landlord" (it's not even accurate!)

> (1) a right wing attempt to satirize the left

It's hard not to secretly suspect that some of these things arise that way-- satire that is so spot on that it gets adopted as the truth.

> and out of usage to be replaced by something else I wouldn't care

Fundamentally that's why language bullying works-- it doesn't matter what words are used so long as the communicating parties understand each other. Not only does it mean that it's not worth it to fight back, it makes anyone who does fight back against it look automatically suspect.

The same is true for a lot of other bullying: ignoring that its bullying deprives it of its power. Or, at least, it denies it of it's power until it doesn't.

But do we want to live in a world where our language is constantly being rewritten-- at a non-zero cost-- by bullies (and their automation)? Reasonable people could debate it.

Policing Language (and frequently changing it) is one of the levers of control that was outlined heavily by Orwell in 1984, with the concept of Doublespeak.

Now I know people are bored of parallels between reality and 1984, or Brave New World, or whatever other dystopia novels. They were written by authors not prophets after all.

Still, it's impossible for me not to think we're on our way when I read something like

"But do we want to live in a world where our language is constantly being rewritten-- at a non-zero cost-- by bullies"

When talking about a real world situation.

Personally I do not want to live in that world.

>Doublespeak

You mixed up newspeak, the constructed language the state was inventing, with doublethink, the practice of believing 2 contradictory statements that each support the state in opposing ways (having it both ways).

> It's hard not to secretly suspect that some of these things arise that way-- satire that is so spot on that it gets adopted as the truth.

There have been many PR/issues on github that were either very likely, or certainly submitted by trolls, that have been accepted.

[1] Although nowadays it's common to see master/slave being replaced, back in 2015 it was not common, this one one of the first things that dropped that terminology. The fact that the user is called pcbro and has a picture of PC Principal from South Park, makes it somewhat likely that it was a troll.

[2] I think based on the language used is almost 100% certainly a troll

[1] https://github.com/apple/swift/pull/165 [2] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268

Right. Arguments against “landlord,” “mother/father,” etc simply reek of concern trolling.

It’s not “landlord”. It’s “person who lords land”.

Satirists already made that joke with the term "Person of Land". Its initialism is "POL" so it even plays into the "POC" angle.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=People%20of%...

/r/loveforlandlords plays this up a lot.

Have you seen the people objecting to the term "Master Recording" and such.

What if your 3) was in 2) pushing 1) only it backfired and people in 2) took it seriously?

As possible a reason for #2 going wrong as any other. But #2 thinking they know what's best for humanity is an established enough pattern that I imagine it happens organically as well.

I'm so tired of SV thinking they are making the world a better place. It's such a tired trope.

The change from “landlord” feels good. I’ve always felt a little awkward when using the word but couldn’t articulate why.

Google wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s nice that someone is able to dedicate attention to this.

What about when the landlord is a company? Or an actual man in fact? We're going from unnecessarily gendered to unnecessarily neutered word.

Like most things, it depends on the situation. The point is to find something that does work. Surely there’s room for improvement?

A nudging system like this better have a much higher signal to noise ratio otherwise it really amps up the clippy-like annoyance. Keep in mind this isn't something you have to go turn on in a menu for "help me write inclusively", it's enabled by default for all; and while I might personally appreciate the reminders when they do work, I'm not sure as many users of the software think playing word police should be a priority.

Yes. I worry that I’m being misunderstood.

- It would be nice to improve our antiquated language. I’m thankful that other people have the time and expertise to work on this.

- Changing language by decree from our tech overlords is dystopian. Google in particular I don’t trust to act in good faith.

Both thoughts can be held simultaneously.

> - It would be nice to improve our antiquated language. I’m thankful that other people have the time and expertise to work on this.

Language constantly evolves through use, and historically this has worked very well. Why is it suddenly necessary for people to "work on" it?

> Surely there’s room for improvement?

A significant number of people, perhaps even a heavy majority, think there's nothing wrong with "landlord" that needs improvement. Change for change's sake isn't a great justification.

I’ve always felt a little awkward when using the word but couldn’t articulate why.

It's worth considering the possibility that the "why" is due to insidious bullying, a miasmatic reframing of language in the false name of unity.

If everyone feels a bit awkward about saying anything, then those who generated the awkwardness gain tremendous power.

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